Support for wire-reels.



W. A. KILMER & S. SWANBUM.

SUPPORT FOR WIRE REELS.

APPLIOATION FILED JULY 22,1910.

Patented Aug. 27, 1912.

"WILLIAM A. KILM'ER ANDfiZiNlEORD SWAN'BUM, OF DE KALB, ILLINOIS,ASSIGNORS T0 AMERICAN STEEL & WIRE COMPANY 01 NEW JER$EY, 01: CHICAGO,ILLINOIS, all. CKDEIQRATION fill NEW JERSEY.

SUPPORT FOR WIRE REELS.

insects.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 27, 1912.

Application filed July 22, 1910. Serial No. 573,217.

T9 all whom may concern:

\ Be it known that we, WILLIAM A. Kimunn and SANFORD SWANBUM, both of DeKalb, inthe county of- Dekalb and State of Illinois, have inventedcertain new and useful improvements in Supports for Wirel'teels, oi?which the following is a specification.

This application relates to means for sup porting a skeleton wire reelduring the operation of reeling barbed wire, or other. similar productthereon, and has particular reference to a support for wire reels suchas disclosed in'our co-pending application, Serial No. 535,262, filedDecember 28, 190$).

As willbe understood. by those skilled in the art, the marketing ofbarbed wire has almost exclusively, been accomplished by reeling thewire into bundles on rigid wooden reels. lhis has been necessary inorder to provide means whereby the wire could be unreeled bythe userwithout inconvenience, but the use of this rigid wooden reel has beenattended with certain manufacturing diificulties, the principal of whichis that of providing a sutiicient number of these wooden reels ready foruse without at the same time provid mg a very large storage spacetherefor. l'o that end, we have devised. skeleton reels such as shown inthe drawings of this application, as well as in our co-pendingapplication, Serial No. 1, 297, filed June 26, 1909, either of whichskeleton reels adapted to be collapsed prior to use and therefore occupya very small storage space. However, in order to use such reels, it hasbeen necessary to devise a support therefor which shall be adapted toreadily secure the reel in the barbed wire machine during the reelingoperation, and such a reel is disclosed herein.

' it has been found in practice that the wire must be placed on the reelin such manner that the central opening through the bundle of wire shallbe of substantially circular outline; that is to say, where the wire iswound on a support having but four cross members the opening issubstantially rectangular, and that in unwinding the bundle of wire, thewire becomes tangled. for the last four or five. turns and considerablethereof is wasted. lit has been found also that where the support forthe reel during the winding operation is provided with at toast sircross members, and. that therefore portions, 8, 01* the reel areperforated, as

the opening through the bundle is substantially circular, the Wire willunwind to the last strand without tangling. It has also been found inpractice that it is undesirable to wind the barbed wire on the crosswires of the wire reel; that is, that the barbed wire must be wound onthe cross members of the support and not contact the light cross wiresof the reel.

Our invention will be more readily understood by reference to theaccompanying drawings, wherein,

Figure 1 'is a sectional'elevation on the line 1 1 of Fig. 2; Fig. 2 .isa cross section on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is an endelevation showing the method of securing the removable head of the reelsupport.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, it will be seen that ourdevice is provided with end portions, A, -B, both of which are similarin outline and construction. The end portion, A, comprises asubstantially circular middle portion, 5, and radial extensions or arms,6, 6. The middle portion, 5, is provided with a transverse slot oropening, 7, in which is adapted to be seated, the end portion, 8, of askeleton reel such as shown in the drawings. .This' reel compriseschannel end portions, 8, 8, and connecting cross wires, 9, 9. The endat, 10, 11, 11, the opening, 10, being provided for an unreeling arbor,the openings, 11, being provided for the accommodation of cross rods ofthe reel support. The metal which is punched out from the opening, 11,is bent over and provides clips for securing the cross wires, 9, 9, tothe end portions, 8,8.

Resuming the description of the end por-' tion, A, a further slot, 12,is provided on the outside of the portion, 5, in which is mounted aslide, or catch, 13, havin the key-hole slots, 14, 14, the larger en sof whichare adapted to fit over the reducedend portions, 15,15, of twocross members, 16, 16, of the support. These contracted end portions areprovided with transverse slots, as best shown in Fig. 3, .in which thecontracted portions of tlie ke hole slots, 1%, are adapted to be seated?he remaining cross members, 17, 17 18, 18, also have reduced endportions which lit into corresponding openings in the end portion, 'A,but no fastening means are provided.

15 hereinbefore is used as follows:

support, the cross member, 1.6,

The head, B, is provided with a circular middle portion, 19, and radialarms, 20, 20, similar to those of head, A. The central portion, 19, isalso provided with a transverse slot or opening, 21, in which is seatedthe channel end member, 8, of the collapsible reel. The cross members,16, l7, 18, have reduced end portions which fit Within openings in thehead, B, and are riveted or otherwise securely fastened in said head, B.Both heads, A, and B, have through openings, 22, mating with theopening, 10, in the end members, 8, of the reel.

In practice, a support such as described The 7 head, A, being removedfrom the ends of the cross members, a skeleton reel of any approvedconstruction, preferably one similar to that shown in the drawings, isplaced on the being passed through the openings, 11, as shown in Fig. 2.The head, A, is then placed on the cross members, the slide, 13,securing the said head, A, thereon. T he support and the reel are thenplaced on the barbed wire machine and the wire wound thereon. hen therequisite amount has been wound the machine is stopped, the wire severedand the support removed from mandrel in the the machine. After removingthe head, A, the bundle of wire is lifted from the support and afterbinder Wires are applied by means of the openings, 23, in the ends ofthe channel member of the Wire reel, tl1e bundle of wire is ready forthe markets Various modifications of our construction will undoubtedlysuggest themselves to those skilled in the art and We do not thereforewish to be limited to the precise construction herein shown.

\Ve claim:

A support for skeleton reels for barbed wire, comprising in combination,head portions, and at least circularly arranged cross connectingmembers, said cross connecting 'members being rigidly secured in onehead and removably held in the other head, and means for locking atleast two of said cross connecting members in said 1emovable head, saidlocking means including a latch slidably movable upon the head,substantially as described. WILLIAM A. KILMER. SANFORD SWANBUBL.

\Vituesses:

V'ic'ron E. HJ nn'rsrnn'r, 'l. D. TEMPLE.

